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MEETING OF THE PHILADELPHIA RED CROSS 
WAR COMMITTEES 

HELD AT 

THE HOTEL RITZ 

PHILADELPHIA. MONDAY EVENING. JUNE 18. 1917 
REMARKS 

BY ■ 

WILLIAM rh GUTHRIE 



Of all the horrors of the present war, the greatest has 
undoubtedly been the inability of the Allies for months 
after the struggle began to furnish adequate ' medical 
treatment and supplies, proper food and sanitary accom- 
modations for their wounded and sick. This chapter of 
unpreparedness is indescribably sad and indelibly dis- 
creditable. 

During the first year of the struggle thousands upon 
thousands of the soldiers of the Allies died or were per- 
manently maimed, diseased and incapacitated for life, 
solely because they did not receive proper or prompt 
medical attention and nursing, and were left without the 
most elementary comforts. The military authorities and 
the Red Cross societies found themselves woefuly lack- 
ing in equipment, facilities and supplies, in nurses and 
surgeons, in ambulances and beds, in buildings and tents 
to accommodate the wounded and sick, and were over- 
whelmed by the number they were called upon to 



care for. Innumerable were the instances of the wound- 
ed whose lives could and should have been saved and 
innumerable the instances of frightful and unnecessary 
pain and suffering endured by those whose every want 
should have been foreseen and provided for by the great 
and rich nations whose battle they were fighting. 

I do not dare to trust myself in any attempt to 
describe the sickening details of this awful story — of the 
thousands who bled to death for want of medical at- 
tention, of the thousands whose wounds became in- 
fected for want of surgical dressings, of the men — our 
fellow human beings — whose feet were frozen andjiad to 
be amputated for want of proper footwear, of those 
whose arms or legs had to be amputated without 
anaesthetic, held down on the operating table by the 
nurses, of those who succumbed for lack of nursing, of 
those who suffered hours and hours and sometimes days 
before their excruciating agony could be relieved — all be- 
cause the people for whom they were fighting had 
neglected to furnish the necessary attendance and sup- 
plies. 

Now, after thirty-five months of the war, with all its 
horrible lessons and all its awful warnings, we, the rich- 
est and the most powerful nation in the world, find our- 
selves as unprepared as was England in August, 1914, 
when she sent her small but immortal army to Belgium 
to face ten times its number in order that the plighted 
faith of England to a small and weak nation might be 
kept inviolate. 



The question before us to-day is whether we shall 
send our young men to fight for us on the battle-fields of 
Europe, three thousand miles away from home, without 
adequate preparation to save them from unnecessary 
suffering and pain and from needless death. It is as 
certain as that the sun will rise to-morrow that if we 
Americans fail to respond to the present call of the Red 
Cross, our own soldiers will suffer and die who could be 
and should be saved from pain, from death, from disease, 
from mutilation. 

After the horrible experiences in every war since the 
Crimea, after the warnings preached year in and year 
out by all Red Cross organizations throughout the world, 
after forty years of open preparation for aggressive war 
by the German Empire, it is hard to find excuses for the 
unpreparedness of the Allies, except perhaps that no one 
realized what fiendish and effective instruments of de- 
struction brutalized science had developed. But after 
these thirty-five months of the example of suffering 
Europe, there will surely be no excuse if we Americans 
find ourselves unprepared, and our conduct will be repre- 
hensible in the extreme if we neglect now for an hour 
longer to make the necessary preparations which, at any 
cost, should guarantee that not a single American shall 
suffer for want of medical treatment, proper food and 
sanitary accommodations. 

This country of ours will, indeed, not be fit to live in 
and certainly not fit to fight or die for if we, with a popu- 



lation of one hundred millions vAid rich and prosperous 
beyond the common allotment of Providence to men, shall 
now fail to respond to the call of the Red Cross War 
Council, and refuse to give it from our plenty adequate 
means to carry on its work. 

In addition to the imperative duty to protect our 
own sons, comes the beseeching, heartrending call of hu- 
manity. On all the battle fronts, thousands of men are 
dying every day unnecessarily and are suffering unneces- 
sarily from wounds, are becoming diseased and contract- 
ing tuberculosis and all the frightful ailments generated 
by war, unsanitary conditions and pestilence, and mil- 
lions of men, women and children are hungry if not starv- 
ing. We are called upon to help save their lives for the 
future. We are called upon to relieve and sustain these 
great civilized and lovable peoples of Europe, bound to 
us by so many ties. Shall we fold our arms and let them 
suffer and die because we refuse to give a fraction of 
what God has given us? 

But we hear on all sides three questions, three 
chilling and sordid complaints. The first question is: 
Why did not the Red Cross wait a few weeks before mak- 
ing this appeal, and let the clamor and recollection of 
last week's campaign for the Liberty Loan become more 
or less dim? Why follow so soon upon that great appeal 
to the patriotism of the country? Why press the gen- 
erosity of the people ? We are told that the time is inop- 



portune. The second question is: Why should not the 
army and navy take care of its own wounded and sick 
under competent and trained army doctors and orderlies 
and nurses ? And the third question is : Why should not 
the funds be provided through taxation by Congress? 
When thousands of millions are being raised through 
government appropriation, it is urged, an extra hundred 
millions would not make much difference and would not 
be felt by anyone. 

But the objectors wholly fail to recognize that the 
Liberty Loan called for no gift and no sacrifice. Every 
dollar will be returned with interest. Not a single cent 
of risk is involved in buying the best investment bond 
in the world. Every dollar subscribed could have been 
procured by taxation, but bond issues were fairer and 
more advantageous. The present appeal is the first call 
upon the Nation at large — upon every citizen of the Re- 
public voluntarily to make some sacrifice for safeguard- 
ing our own sons and relieving the misery of countless 
human beings. 

To the first question relating to the time being in- 
opportune, let me briefly answer in the words of the 
Chairman of the Red Cross War Council, Mr. Davison. 
When urged to postpone the appeal, he answered: ''If 
we wait, it may be too late." And Davison was right: 
no time is too early and no time could be inopportune 
to make this call upon the patriotism, charity and mercy 



of America. The Allies waited; and it was too late for 
thousands of their soldiers, and thousands upon thou- 
sands of their civilians. We Americans waited when 
the Civil War broke out, and thousands of our soldiers 
died unnecessarily or had to go through life maimed and 
diseased because we were unprepared and remained un- 
prepared until private citizens organized the famous 
United States Sanitary Commission under the leadership 
of Dr. Bellows. During the Spanish-American War we 
again waited until it was too late, as shown by the record 
of thousands of our men unnecessarily dying or contract- 
ing incurable diseases in Cuba and at our military 
camps, on Long Island, at Chickamauga and at Santia- 
go. We have now waited for nearly three years when we 
might have been preparing, and if we wait any longer it 
may be too late for hundreds, if not thousands, of our 
own sons. 

Indeed, it seems to me that, if anything, this appeal 
should have preceded the Liberty Loan, vital as that loan 
was. Mr. Davison and his colleagues are absolutely right 
when they declare that no time is to be lost, and that it 
would be utterly indefensible and callously reckless to 
wait a day longer. 

The second question inquires why the government 
should not do the work which the Red Cross does if only 
in connection with the care of the military wounded and 
sick. The answer is that the universal experience, in time 



of war, is that supplementary aid, relief and service from 
voluntary sources is indispensable. Every war for a cen- 
tury has demonstrated the inability or incapacity of mili- 
tary or other government officials to do this relief work. 
Experience has repeatedly shown that such work is best 
handled by civilian organizations. This has been the 
consensus of opinion after thorough investigation at all 
the International Red Cross Conventions since 1863. And 
this was the experience in our own Civil War and Span- 
ish-American War. Moreover, the work of the Red Cross 
is essentially one of sentiment, of charity, and of mercy, 
which somehow cannot be satisfactorily done in great 
emergencies and cataclysms by bureaucrats or function- 
aries. It calls for a lofty humanitarian spirit and al- 
truistic service and a special uplifting enthusiasm which 
money cannot buy ; it requires a sympathy which salaries 
cannot secure. No money compensation could possibly 
have enlisted the splendid talents, the executive and 
financial genius, the self-sacrificing spirit and high en- 
thusiasm of a Davison and his associates. I wish I had 
the time to pay them the tribute of thanks, admiration 
and gratitude the country owes them for all they are do- 
ing. And, if they succeed, and I believe they will — for 
they must or we would despair of the future — if they 
succeed in their comprehensive and far-reaching plans, 
they will do much towards winning the war and bringing 
about a just and lasting peace. But above all they will 
add immeasurably to the prestige and grandeur of this 
great, loyal, generous, beloved country of ours. 



8 

The third objection that meets us on all sides is that 
the funds for the Red Cross work could readily have 
been raised by means of taxation or the issue of bonds. 

A sufficient answer to this complaint should be that 
the President and Congress, after full consideration, have 
otherwise determined and have said that the funds for 
the Red Cross should be supplied voluntarily by the 
people of the country. They, our representatives, have 
referred the whole duty and burden to us, the American 
people, as properly a matter to be left to voluntary ac- 
tion — leaving to us the extent of the relief which we shall 
contribute voluntarily out of our plenty, leaving it to us 
to show whether we are so selfish and callous as to refuse 
to make any sacrifices unless wrung from us by taxation. 
As yet we have made no sacrifices — certainly not in tak- 
ing bonds and thereby making a safe investment. I be- 
lieve that the decision of Congress was wise and right. 

The work of the Red Cross is a service of mercy to 
our own people and to humanity, and it should not be 
made the subject of compulsory taxation. The people at 
large should be appealed to and should all have an oppor- 
tunity of showing their voluntary patriotism and sym- 
pathy by contributing even if it be a mite to this field of 
relief and charity. Taxation, by means of an income tax, 
would only reach a very small percentage of the popula- 
tion of the United States. The Red Cross War Council 
hopes that the fund they seek will be contributed by at 
least ten million Americans, and they would infinitely 



prefer to have one hundred thousand subscriptions of ten 
dollars each than one subscription of one million dollars. 
They want to be able to go to all those whom they re- 
lieve and comfort and save, and say : ' ' This is the willing 
and loving gift of millions of American citizens and not 
what has been wrung from them by taxation ; it is from 
the people home who are back of our soldiers at the 
front. ' ' This will afford an immense although subtle and 
indefinable joy and comfort to suffering soldiers who re- 
ceive help so sweetened and thus twice blessed, blessing 
him that gives and him that takes ! 

How proud we Americans will be, what a splendid 
page we shall write in the history of humanity, how high 
we shall stand in true national glory and grandeur if 
the result of this appeal shall be to proclaim to the world 
that the people of this great free self-governing Repub- 
lic have voluntarily given $100,000,000 to help the suffer- 
ing and afflicted, to protect the helpless and feed the 
starving ! 

It is said that we cannot add a cubit to our stature 
by taking thought, but surely we shall add many a cubit 
to our stature as a nation if we can record to the honor 
and glory of this generation and of Christianity that we 
raised the largest sum ever even thought possible in the 
history of the world for this great work of charity and 
mercy. 

But the Red Cross, if adequately supplied and equip- 
ped, should also from the material side be regarded as a 



10 

practical auxiliary to the fighting force and as render- 
ing the army doubly efficient and effective. A French 
officer told me recently that in many instances during the 
past three years the offensive of the French and British 
armies in France had to be checked or stopped because 
of the great number of the wounded who could not be 
taken care of and were dying for want of medical attend- 
ance, nurses and equipment. He declared that it would 
have been inhuman to lead men into battle under such 
conditions. Hence, those who think only of prompt and 
complete victory at any cost of human life and suffering 
should appreciate that the way to render the army ef- 
fective and to assure victory is to enlist and equip the 
Ked Cross as the indispensable auxiliary of the fighting 
force, and give it the means to relieve the army of the 
care of the wounded and sick and thus afford it a free 
hand for its work. 

May I take a few minutes more of j^our time while I 
review the situation that confronts us in this Avar? 

We are facing the greatest crisis and the most bar- 
barous warfare since the overthrow of the Roman 
Empire. The issue is again between civilization and 
barbarism — between conscience and brutalized militar- 
ism. Never before has so much been at stake materially 
and spiritually; never before have men's souls been tried 
as they have been and will be tried in this war; never 
before have the services and leadership of educated and 
disciplined men and women been so essential. Modern 



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civilization must be saved from the domination of con- 
scienceless and merciless brute force; and the hope of 
accomplishing this result now rests upon the efforts, the 
services and the sacrifices of the American people. It 
seems, in truth, that America's heroic day has come, 
when she is to find her fuller and broader and nobler life 
and fulfill her highest mission. If Americans are found 
wanting in the stupendous task and patriotic duty ahead 
of them, mankind may have to suffer centuries of misery 
equal to the misery of what are known to us as the Dark 
Ages. 

We should bear in mind that the advanced stage of 
progress and civilization attained by the Romans was 
completely overthrown by barbarous militarism, and that 
the peace and prosperity that then reigned under just 
and equal laws, the literature and arts that flourished, 
the splendid system of jurisprudence that had been de- 
veloped, and the growth of the moral instinct that was 
beginning to soften manners and uplift and dignify man- 
hood, were all submerged in the triumph of barbarism. 
We must not forget that a thousand years of desolation, 
misery and darkness followed the fall of Rome, and that 
the renaissance of manners, literature, arts and jurispru- 
dence which produced our modern civilization, dates 
only from the fifteenth century. Nor should we fail to 
realize and ponder that conscienceless and brutalized 
science and soulless, materialistic education have become 
the accomplices of modern barbarism and have devised 



12 

means and instruments of frightful power wliich have 
rendered war infinitely more destructive, inhuman and 
merciless than anything recorded of the barbarians of 
the days of Attila. 

It is of paramount importance that the American 
people should appreciate the real issue that is now being 
fought out on the battlefields of Europe and on the high 
seas — what is really at stake in defense of which our Pres- 
ident has nobly pledged all that we are and all that we 
have — what would be the stupendous and ruinous con- 
sequences of defeat to America and Europe, and should 
realize that if we fail the future will certainly be one of 
military domination, of brutal barbarism, of misery and 
decline. Especially important is it that the young men 
whom we are calling upon to dedicate themselves to 
patriotic service and sacrifice should thoroughly under- 
stand why we and our allies must be prepared to make 
sacrifices of blood and treasure unparalleled in history 
in order to assure the final triumph of the right and the 
future security of our civilization. 

Nothing could be more dangerous or more likely to 
undermine the spirit and stamina and chill the enthu- 
siasm of the country than to permit any doubt to prevail 
as to the causes of our participation in this war and the 
necessity for the great sacrifices which we must willingly 
make. We should banish all catch phrases and euphem- 
isms, which tend to blind and mislead many and can do 
incalculable mischief when taken apart from their con- 



13 

text, and which sooner or later will come back to plague 
us. We have not plunged into this frightful struggle in 
support of any political propaganda or abstract theories. 
We have not gone to war in order to force democracy 
upon other peoples, for we recognize the right of other 
peoples to choose their own form of government. That 
is of the essence of our Declaration of Independence. We 
are not at war with autocracy as a form of government, 
but with manifestations of its results. If a dictatorship 
were to be established in Russia to-morrow in order to 
save the country from anarchy, we would continue to co- 
operate with her as an ally; and the overthrow of au- 
tocracy in Germany would not change the issue at all so 
long as the German people were bent upon brutal con- 
quest, oppression and domination, and approved, as they 
now do, the barbarous methods and merciless atrocities 
of their military forces. Let us never forget that the 
German people acclaimed the sinking of the ' ' Lusitania ' ' ! 
We have drawn the sword to avenge atrocities and 
wrongs to which no self-respecting nation could longer 
submit. We have gone to war because hundreds of 
American citizens, defenseless men, women and chil- 
dren entitled to the full protection of the American flag, 
have been barbarously and defiantly murdered on the 
high seas — because our national honor, duty and self- 
respect compel us to punish the offenders so that here- 
after no nation, however powerful, shall dare to take 
the life of an American — because the army which at- 



14 

tacked and brutally devastated peaceful Belgium would 
constitute a menace to us if it triumphed and went un- 
punished in Europe. We have joined the Allies because 
the barbarians who have deliberately and mercilessly 
ruined everything in their march, even more completely 
than the savage Huns of old, who have ruthlessly slaugh- 
tered defenseless non-combatants, who have wantonly de- 
stroyed private property and desecrated and ruined the 
cathedrals and churches of Belgium and France, who 
have murdered unoffending priests and outraged holy 
nuns, have made Europe and the world at large unsafe 
for Americans as well as for all other civilized peoples. 
It is primarily to make the world safe for Americans 
to live and travel in that we are now at war. We have 
determined to put an end to the danger of our own people 
being subjected to the brutal oppression and unspeakable 
atrocities of German barbarism. We are fighting and 
sacrificing for the maintenance and safety of civilized 
life according to our American ideals. We are de- 
termined to compel the observance by the German people 
of the just rules of international law and of the humane 
laws of war which recognize the rights of neutrals and of 
weak and defenseless non-combatants, because we deem 
those rules and those laws vital to the future protection 
and happiness of our own people and vital to our own in- 
dependence and welfare as a nation. 

Whilst we are thus engaged in the war to redress our 
own wrongs and to protect the vital interests of Ameri- 



15 

cans, we are also fighting and sacrificing for the still 
higher purpose of suppressing fiendish barbarism once 
for all time and of perpetuating those standards of civ- 
ilization and humanity which we cherish and want to see 
prevail in the community of nations. In a word, in fight- 
ing to redress our own wrongs, we are at the same time 
fighting for liberty and humanity the world over. 

Finally, it seems to me that you would not want a 
spokesman of the Red Cross War Council to allow this 
memorable occasion to pass without some recognition, 
however inadequate, of the cooperation of the women 
of Philadelphia, who have always been so patriotic and 
charitable, and who are certain to respond to any call for 
the relief and prevention of suffering, pain and misery. 
Indeed, the field of the Red Cross is in large measure the 
peculiar province of women; and without them now 
there would be little hope of success, for they must be 
relied on not only to help raise the needed funds, but to 
secure the necessary nurses and to prepare indispensable 
supplies. 

We should never forget that the inspiration of the 
Red Cross — of that great volunteer army of mercy 
which has done so much good in the past and which is 
destined to do so much more good in the immediate fu- 
ture — sprang from the example of heroism and devotion 
of women sixty years ago on the bloody battle-fields of 
the Crimea — sprang into life from the splendid service 
of the noble British women under Florence Nightingale 



16 

who nursed the British siciv and wounded, and from the 
holy Catholic nuns who nursed the French sick and 
wounded during that awful war. Then, as history tells 
us, thousands of the best of the manhood of England and 
France suifered frightful pain and died miserably be- 
cause their governments had failed to provide for the 
work which the American Red Cross proposes to do in 
this war, and thousands were saved from death and 
from being permanently maimed or diseased by the 
nursing of these noble and heroic women. 

The wounded and sick British soldiers far away from 
home, cruelly suffering through the long nights, called 
Florence Nightingale, as she passed from bed to bed and 
room to room, ' ' The Lady of the Lamp, ' ' and she and her 
assistants were known as the "Angel Band" — angels 
of mercy! 

You may recall that our own poet Longfellow dedi- 
cated to Miss Nightingale a poem entitled "Santa Filo- 
mena" — the English word nightingale being filomena in 
Italian. May I ask your further patience while I read 
two stanzas from that poem I 

"On England's annals, through the long 
Hereafter of her speech and song. 

That light its rays shall cast 

From portals of the past. 

"A Lady with a Lamp shall stand 
In the great history of the land, 

A noble type of good. 

Heroic womanhood." 



17 

We Americans confidently believe that on the honor 
roll of this great war and its record of lives saved, of 
suffering relieved, of bereavement comforted, of sorrow 
alleviated, of starving fed, the Recording Angel in Heaven 
will inscribe the names of innumerable American women 
bearing the ennobling badge of the Eed Cross, whose 
heroism and self-sacrifice will be quite beyond the poor 
power of human words to express, but who will stand in 
the history of our land as examples to future generations 
of the noblest type of good, heroic, self-sacrificing Amer- 
ican womanhood, which is the pride and glory of our 
day and generation. 



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